Improvements should be made to auditing and appraisal committees at the nation’s schools to better protect the rights of students, two Control Yuan members said yesterday.
The committees handle cases involving complaints about gender inequality in schools, as well as the use of corporal punishment against students, but the majority of committee members are school staff, which makes it difficult for committee members from outside the school to play a significant role, Control Yuan members Tsai Chung-yi (蔡崇義) and Tien Chiu-chin (田秋堇) said.
Students who have been victims of corporal punishment or discrimination are also excluded from the committees’ deliberations, which is a breach of their rights to express their views, the Control Yuan members said.
Photo: Hsieh Chun-lin, Taipei Times
The Ministry of Education should use Children’s Day, which was yesterday, as an opportunity to make improvements, they said.
Citing an example of a case where a student’s rights were breached, Tsai and Tien said that a student surnamed Chia (甲) at Shi-Yuan Senior High School in Taichung’s Situn District (西屯) was forced by a teacher surnamed Chen (陳) to kneel for hours, and to hold heavy wooden boards and water pipes as a form of corporal punishment in 2017.
The student was also subjected to personal insults that made reference to his genitals, they said, adding that the psychological impact of the abuse caused the student to miss several classes.
Chen was suspended for one year after an investigation by the Control Yuan found that he had “deeply traumatized Chia, both physically and mentally,” they said.
Through the investigation, the Control Yuan learned that the majority of school appraisal committee members are school staff, and the opinions of outside committee members are overlooked when disagreements occur, Tsai and Tien said, adding that students are not represented at the meetings.
“Freedom from physical and mental violence is a basic human right of children. Do not let children grow up with injuries caused by the education system,” they said.
The ministry should seek to improve the human rights literacy of educators through pre-employment and ongoing training, they added.
“The prohibition of corporal punishment and the protection of children from violence are already national education policies,” they said. “The best gift we can give the nation’s children on Children’s Day is to put more emphasis on the protection of their rights.”
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